Breaking news out of Australia, specifically Joondalup, reports that five people were hospitalized after inhaling a new form of Kronic, the most popular synthetic marijuana available (or not available–depending on the country). We’ve warned you about this before, but now I have to tell you again with more of an emphasis on just how idiotic these synthetic compounds are. STOP SMOKING IT! There’s more chastising to come after the break because if five random people in Australia had been HMJ readers or had friends that read it, they would have avoided a miserable trip to the hospital.

If you’re unfamiliar with my obvious disdain for these cheap (AND LEGAL!) offshoots of our beloved marijuana, then you can read these posts. Or read this, and bang your head against the wall for being a sycophantic tool vulnerable to the whims and fancies of the most diabolical of species: the ad-copy writer:

The Auckland-based manufacturing company believed to be importing the product into Australia describes the product on its website as ‘the height of innovation’ and that the new Kronic was developed ‘in response to demand.’

‘Containing no banned substances, the latest in our line of premium home-grown smoking blends will deliver you a smooth, haze-filled blaze,’ it reads.

Which is utter horseshit. The same type of horseshit that all manufacturers of synthetic products espouse so you’ll buy their product and they can make money off your lemmings-based consumerism. Conspicuous idiocy more than showing off the hip, new drug available. FourLoko is one thing, but this shit just isn’t right.

If you’re smoking this hooey because real marijuana is illegal, then you need to start thinking a little bit about synthetic vs. organic. Marijuana buds come from the ground. If you’re religious, you could say God created marijuana. If you’re a vegan or a tree-hugger, you could say Mother Nature created herb. If you’re a secular anarchist, you could say fuck “the man” and smoke REAL marijuana to do just that (it’s still prohibited on a federal level). Regardless, don’t mess with the crappy man-made shit. Man made war, and strife and all the shit. We’ve fucked our planet up, but our abused world still grows delicious herb without our prodding. Man-made idrugs always lose.

Smoke marijuana instead of its followers. No one is going to the hospital for that. If you get sick or die from synthetic marijuana you’ve lost all my sympathy. I’ve warned you enough. Now call all your buddies in Australia and tell them the same.

I don’t grow weed so I don’t know. But maybe you do grow weed and so maybe you’ll know the answer to this one. How long does it take to grow a marijuana plant and what’s the time span that one would have to wait until that said plant is ready for ingestion?

See, I ask this because GW Pharmaceutics just spent a decade developing some type of cannabis concoction that has now been approved for use in treating ‘spasticity’ due to Multiple Sclerosis. They are currently approved to sell this same drug in the United Kingdom and Spain; and now Germany has sold out to big pharma allowing the drug pushers to peddle their ‘medicine’ to the terminally ill public.

Sativex contains active ingredients called ‘cannabinoids’ that are extracted from cannabis plants. It took GW around 10 years to develop the medicine, using genetically unique cannabis plants that are grown at a top-secret farm.

Strange how the pharma industry gets to grow, and ‘study’ marijuana in top-secret farms but you and I better not get caught with so much as a weed seed bouncing around in the sole of an old Converse sneaker in some countries.

We wrote about Sativex a few days ago; you can read that article right here and decide if you think the future of marijuana medical relief should really be put in the hands of ‘the pusher man’ aka Big Pharma.

Next year, the patent on Marinol—the synthetic version of THC—comes to an end, opening the market for synthetic THC distribution to all takers. Pharmaceutical companies know a cash cow when they see it and they are lining up en masse to produce their version of Marinol.

Sativex, produced by UK firm GW Pharmaceuticals, distributed in Canada and in many European countries and is in stage III trials in the U.S., utilizes naturally derived THC from the cannabis plant in its sublingual spray. A number of pharmaceutical companies have petitioned to use similar naturally derived THC rather than its more costly to produce synthetic version.

This is Big Pharma asking for legal medical marijuana now. With their legions of lobbyists on Capitol Hill and tens of millions of dollars pouring into the re-election war chests of politicians of both political parties, they are likely to get their way.

Now that may not seem fair that patients and small time collective operators get jail and fat cat corporate executives get to rake in billions for doing the same thing, but that’s the way it goes in this country. Giant corporations call all the shots in Washington and with the unfathomable number of deluded Americans enthusiastically supporting the corporate welfare-toting Tea Party pandering legislators, it’s only going to get worse.

Since the amount of money Big Pharma will make on the sale of medicinal marijuana will be directly proportional to the volume of marijuana consumed by patients, what do you think the pharmaceutical companies will do—instruct their lobbyist to seek legislation restricting the sale of marijuana only to people with one foot in the grave or start advertising on TV?

Since there will be no longer be an exclusive patent on producing THC derived medications, no one company can control the distribution and hence charge monopoly prices. With competition from a multitude of pharmaceutical corporations wanting their slice of this new multi-billion dollar pie, good old-fashioned American competition and innovation will drive prices down, down, down.

Of course, the widespread use of marijuana could cost pharmaceutical companies billions in lost sales of analgesics (painkillers), anti-psychotics and sleeping pills. Although these are amongst the most profitable drugs they produce, those loses will be dwarfed by the billions taken in from having total control of the legal marijuana market.

No one knows what form it will be in. Marinol is a pill, Sativex is a spray, but since it is going to be all about money, no doubt some innovative company will find some way to deliver this natural product in its natural form.

To obtain Big Pharma’s marijuana, you will get the old-fashioned prescription from a doctor instead of the new-fangled recommendation. Getting a prescription should be as easy as a getting a recommendation. Like Marinol, marijuana will be a Schedule III drug, which is much less tightly regulated than Schedule II drugs, which require special prescription pads with reporting to the DEA. Doctors hand out prescriptions for Schedule III drugs such as Vicodin like water, so it will be extremely easy to obtain a marijuana prescription from almost any doctor.

Not only will it be easy to get, but your insurance company will pay for the doctor visit. They might even pay for your marijuana. Why shouldn’t they? Insurance companies will save billions on the medications that doctors won’t have to prescribe because their patients have chosen to use marijuana instead.

Another major benefit for patients of having Big Pharma control marijuana distribution would be that since marijuana would be a prescription medicine, it would not be subject to taxes. The onerous prospects of a $50 to $100 per-ounce tax or the current business and sales taxes now being levied on collectives by cash-strapped cities would vanish. Since marijuana can be produced relatively cheaply if it is a legal crop, marijuana would become cheaper than aspirin.

Lanny Swerdlow, RN, LNC, hosts Marijuana Compassion& Common Sense every Monday at 6PM on Inland Empire talk radio station KCAA 1050AM and simulcast at http://www.kcaaradio.com. He can be reached at (760) 799-2055 or lanny@marijuananews.org.